Over toast, scrambled eggs, and a cup of coffee on a late March Friday, Bob Klas bemoaned the departure of Gophers men’s basketball player Pharrel Payne to the transfer portal the previous evening. That afternoon, Klas—a longtime supporter of the Gophers, prosperous businessman in the Twin Cities, and benefactor of the University of Minnesota—met with Ben Johnson, Payne’s abruptly fired coach, to talk about NIL money.
Everyone with a stake in Gophers athletics, whether financially, professionally, or emotionally, was taken aback by Payne’s departure. In the NIL era, the amount of money required to maintain a player of his caliber had altered dramatically.
That number they were thinking of isn’t the amount we have today,” Klas stated.
Klas has donated six figures to Dinkytown Athletes, the group that assists in arranging and negotiating name, image, and likeness (NIL) contracts for Gophers athletes, twice in the past two years. His memory of the biggest athletic events he’s ever been to is photographic, and he’s usually available to help Dinkytown Athletes when they need a quick donation for a particular player.
The Golden Gopher Fund, the University of Minnesota athletics department’s fundraising arm, has been catering to contributors like Klas for decades. When the Gophers were constructing what is now Huntington Bank Stadium, his parents, Robert and Sandra Klas, donated more than $1 million, and those kinds of significant fundraising campaigns and donations have been the most noticeable on college campuses.
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